I’m in London for a few days, doing some research for Rest.

We’re staying at the Hotel Russell, which overlooks Russell Square in Bloomsbury. I’ve passed by it many times, and have always been curious about what it was like. It’s nice.

Our room doesn’t overlook Russell Square, of course; ours overlooks one of the other hotels, though if you crane your head out the window, you can see some of the trees.

Thursday I was at the British Library, and the Wellcome Collection. Both were great.

Friday I went down to the London School of Economics, and spent the day in their special collections. The LSE library has this wacky spiral staircase in its center.

London is great as always, and being here in the summer (which I’ve done very rarely) is great. We did happen to be in town during a huge anti-austerity rally, which meant we could forget doing normal tourist stuff, but which proved interesting on its own terms.

Wednesday I go up to Cambridge, to do some work in the archives there. Then it’s back home.